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E 473 

54 DDRESS 

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Copy 1 of 

Major Jng. F. Lacey 



APRIL 7th, 1912 
at 

Shiloh Battle Ground 

TENNESSEE 

On Fiftieth Anniversary 
of Battle 



Why Do We Create Battle 
Field Parks and Erect 
Monuments Thereon? 



r 



The celebration of the fiftieth anni- 
versary of any event by survivors is 
something which must always be 
tinged with more or less sadness and 
disappointment. It is a short time 
in the history of a nation, but a long 
time in the life of a man. 

The average Ol a generation is 
thirty-three years. No wonder that 
so few survivor.s aupear here today. 
But there are stiu many left of the 
great host who battled here in 1862, 
and they are with one accord turning 
their thoughts in this direction today. 
Their hearts are with us. 

The first day at Shiloh ended in 
gloom, and night closed in on the 
silent dead and amid the moans of 
the wounded. 

The Iowa monument now stands re- 
newed for its second day at Shiloh 
It has not yielded to defeat. It has 
risen again from its overthrow. May 
it stand as a mute eloquent memor- 
ial of the heroism of the sons of Iowa 
for thousands of years to come. 

Battles are turning points in the 
world's history, and to the scene of 
one of these sanguinary struggles the 
human imagination always turns with 
profound interest. 

In all days and generations a pyra- 
mid or a mound has been the most 
common memorial of a battlefield, 



^ and under such mounds are usually 
interred the remains of the dead 

The great mound at Waterloo, sur 
mounted by the colossal Belgian lion 
marks the spot where the Old Guard 
went down in final defea.t, after Na- 
poleon had dominated the world for 
twenty years. And when I visited 
this monument a few years ago the 
straws hung from the open jaws of 
the lion, showing that the doves of 
peace had there built their nest. 

At Cheronea the Greek mound 
marks the spot where their heroes 
were buried twenty-three hundred 
years ago, and in the broken frag- 
ments of the old lion on that mound 
the wild bees have made their home. 

When the warring hosts cease their 
contests peace resumes its sway, and 
the birds are in possession of the 
field at Shiloh. 

Germany has erected a monument 
to the great Arminius, who overthrew 
a splendid Roman army in the days 
of Augustus, and whose name troubled 
the sleep of the Emperor and led him 
to cry aloud in the anguish of his 
heart: "O, Valens, give me back my 
legions!" 

Zinghis Klan erected a pyramid of 
skulls to commemorate his victories — 
the most ghastly memorial of the 
scourage of mankind. These monu- 

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ments have usually celebrated the 
victories of aggression but it has re- 
mained to the people of our country 
to make a memorial or monument of 
the battlefield itself. 

These national parks are created 
rather to commemorate the full and 
complete reconciliation tht has comej 
upon the 'participants in our Civil] 
War. As the war of York and Lan- 
caster ended in the union of the Red 
and White Roses, so the reunion of 
the states is cemented upon every 
battlefield of the war. 

We have met on one of the great- 
est of these battlefields, upon the 
fiftieth anniversary of the contest. 
Today we stand among the trees, 
where the whistling bullet, the shriek- 
ing shot and shelt dealt such havoc; 
and best of all we meet on this scene 
as friends rejoicing in a Union cem- 
ented by so much of sorrow and 
strife. 

From Bull Run to Appomattox as 
the crow flies is only one hundred 
and twenty miles, but that journey 
covered thousands of miles through 
many states. Measured by time it 
was a journey of four years: meas- 
ured in blood and tears it was a 
thousand years. 

The journey was by various and 
devious routes: through mud and 

—4— 



mire, through sunshine and through 
storm, through summer heats and 
winter snows, through dangers by 
flood and fire, through dangers by 
stream and wood, through sickness 
and sorrow, and by the wayside death 
always stalked and grimly claimed 
his own. 

The real monument of that war aft- 
er all is not the marble and granite 
that celebrates the life and death 
of heroes, or preserves their features 
or names for the study of genera- 
tions yet to come. 

Under St. Paul's Cathedral in Lon- 
don is the tomb of Sir Christopher 
Wren, who designed the beautiful 
building and constructed it from 
corner stone to spire. His epitaph is 
short and simple: "If you would see 
my monument, look around you!" 

If you would see the true monument 
of these dead, and of their surviving 
comrades, look around you wherever 
you may be. A united country is 
their monument. Their manument 
can be seen from the car windows of 
forty-eight prosperous states. 

The monuments erected by the liv- 
ing to the dead honor the living even 
more than they honor the dead. And 
here upon this southern battlefield, 
surrounded by men who fought on 
both sides, we may quote with a-ur 

—5— 



approval the immortal and prophetic 

words of Shakespeare: 

"Our peace will like a broken limb 

united 
Grow stronger for the breaking." 

And so it is the wounded shell fish 
that produces the pearl. 

The high water mark of the Confed- 
eracy was reached at Gettysburg, 
and that turning point was dedicated 
by the immortal address of Abraham 
Lincoln. His declaration that, "The 
world will little regard what we say 
here, but will always remember what 
they did here," is as true also of Shi- 
loh. 

Shiloh was dedicated fifty years ago 
by the men who fought and died and 
by the men who fought and lived. 

But in the wildest dreams of the 
participants in that bloody battle no 
one thought that any of the genera- 
tion engaged in that contest would 
live to see the men on both sides set- 
ting it apart as a memorial to hero- 
ism, and dedicated to the perpetuity 
of the Union of the states. 

Vicksburg's grim walls stood as a 
barrier to the commerce of the Fath- 
er of Waters, and there, too, was an- 
other one of the turning points in our 
history. There the Titanic battle 
raged for months, and little did the 
combatants think that they were pre- 

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paring the field for a beautiful park 
dedicated to Peace and Union. 

Both armies worshiped the same 
God. Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson 
offered up prayers for victory and a 
just God , answered the prayers as 
was best for them all. 

The night before Blenheim Marl- 
borough took the Holy Sacrament nad 
prepared to conquer or die. When 
the Swiss troops at Granson knelt to 
pray before going into battle the 
courtiers of Charles the Bold said, 
"Sire, they are kneeling in submis- 
sion," but Charles knew they were 
praying to the Almighty and prepar 
ing for death or victory, and that their 
reverent attitude showed them to be 
most dangerous to their enemies. 
They feared God, only. 

A hundred years ago bloodletting 
was the cure for all diseases. This 
sanguinary remedy has gone into dis- 
use, and I trust thetime will come 
when such beroic treatment as war 
produces will no longer need to be 
used throughout the world. The arbi- 
trament of justice will take the place 
of the sword. 

Let us hope that Famine, Fire and 
Sword will cease to crouch like 
hounds at the heels of Mars waiting 
for employment. 

Comrades, youth, like the aloe, 

—7— 



blooms but once. The men who join 
in this semi-centennial reunion must 
of necessity be growing old, though 
they were but boys in 1862. But they 
are not out of date; they see things 
denied to the sight of the younger 
generation. 

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and 

decayed, 
"Lets in the light through chinks that 

time hath made." 

We are all united here today, we 
have no quarrel, unless it be like that 
of the newly married couple, who dis- 
puted vigorously over the question as 
to which loved the other best. Let 
the dispute ever proceed as to wheth- 
er the North of the South is the most 
devoted to the flag of the Union. 

Hate is love turned wrong side out. 
The hate of 1862 has turned again to 
love. A kind hand clenched makes 
an ugly fist — but when it opens again 
it is ready for a welcoming grasp. 

The North and the South are unit- 
ed as they never were before since 
the closing days of the Revolution. 
When King James II at La Hogue 
was watching his French allies in 
their battle for his restoration, and 
the French were driven back, the 
fugitive king cried exultantly, "See 
how my brave English fight." 

—8— 



After Bull Run Charles Francis Ad- 
ams attended a levee of the Queen at 
London and some of the English pres- 
ent said tauntingly: "Mr. Minister, 
these Confederates fight well." 

Mr. Adams proudly replied: "Of 
course they do, they are my country- 
men." 

And let me say for the soldiers 
North and South, that I can recall no 
instance since the war when one of 
these men ever led a mob. 

Montesquieu sas said: "Happy is 
that nation whose annals are tire- 
some." 

More stirring history was crowded 
into the brief four years of the Civil 
war than in any five times that length 
of peaceful years: There are vacant 
spots in the sky. And in no period 
of the world's history have there been 
more fruitful years with their harvest 
of heroic deds. 

That war was long anticipated by 
far-seeing men. Its occurrence was 
delayed by many timely compromises, 
but its final coming was enevitable. 

It could be delayed, not prevented. 
The cape at the southern point of 
Africa was long marked upon the 
map as the "Cape of Storms." When 
it was at last circumnavigated it be- 
came the "Cape of Good Hope" in- 
stead, and it will always remain so. 

Now that the struggle of 1861 to 

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1865 is over tlie country has come to 
look upon it as bringing new and bet- 
ter conditions, and the making of a 
homogeeous union of states. 

A divided nation of 30,000,000 peo- 
ple in 1861 is now a united country of 
90,000,000 souls. Buckner and Grant 
were cadets at West Point and were 
boyish friends. They again met in 
the heat of war at Donelson, but when 
Grant's life went out on Mount Mc- 
Gregor, Buckner, with tender hands 
and moist eyes, acted as pall-bearer 
for the Great Comma.nder. 

And each side honors itself in pay- 
ing tribute to its former opponents. 
Defeat is the less bitter at the hands 
of a noble foe, and victory the sweet- 
er when won over a brave enemy. 
And when united such opponents have 
nothing to fear from the rest of the 
world. 

In a calm sea every man is a pilot. 
In the stormy times, of which we are 
speaking, the greatest skill was need- 
ed; but in the history of our country 
no -^"eat occasion has arisen in which 
the man of the hour did not appear. 
Pilots may steer but the winds, the 
tides and the currents move the ship. 

In those weary days "Grief burned 
faster than tears could drown," but 
the end came at last, and now, after 
fifty years, it seems like a frightful 

—10— 



dream. Many of the old men of that 
day still hang on like oak leaves in 
the late winter, and a goodly number 
are now gathered in one of the most 
remarkable reunions of all time. 

The magnitude of that contest is 
difficult of comprehension to the gen- 
eration of today. The Greek chil- 
dren were taught to commit to mem- 
ory the names of the three hundred 
heroes who fell at Thermopylae. But 
so great was the Civil war that the 
mere cost of compiling and printing 
its official record was $3,000,000. Hu- 
man memory could only contain its 
principal events. 

When I visited the Wilderness Bat- 
tle Ground a few years ago, I sought 
for some memento to carry home, and 
in one of the trees hung an empty 
hornets' nest, collected by nature's 
little warriors in time of peace, and it 
now hangs in my library as a suitable 
memorial of an empty battlefield. The 
Hornets' Nest Brigade is here today, 
but without their stings. Nature, the 
all-forgiving, takes the red battlefield 
in her arms and hides it with flowers 
and harvests. 

In Shiloh Park is commemorated 
the first great battle of the war, 
where a large part of the troops on 
both sides had seen but little of drill 
and discipline, but where they, never- 

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theless, fought with heroic valor. 

At Gettysburg may be seen in the 
fertile fields of an old and populous 
state the memorial of trained and tried 
troops coming on both sides from 
many a well-contested field. 

Whilst at Vicksburg, the scene of a 
great siege bears in memory that com- 
panion victory in the west which, with 
Helena and Port Hudson, proclaimed 
that the waters of the mighty Missis- 
sippi should thenceforth flow unvex- 
ew to the sea. 

And the great field of Chickamauga 
Mission Ridge and Lookout Mountain 
show an unequaled panorama where 
the contest furnished such a scenic 
spectacle as has probably never been 
equaled on the planet. 

And, lastly, Appomattox marks the 
end of the struggle and the beginning 
of the new order of things. The 
world is a battlefield of accomplish- 
ment and endeavor, but the places 
where great issues have been fought 
out are worthy of special commemora- 
tion. 

As we gather inspiration while 
standing by the graves of the world's 
heroic dead, so should we gather fresh 
encouragement by standing amid the 
scenes of the great batles of the past. 

—12— 



The importance of a battle is not 
measured by its bloodshed. 

Only 192 Greeks fell at Maratlion.. 
and that victory was a turning point 
in the history of civilization that is 
felt even at this day. Only 19 graves 
are at Appomattox. The Union dead 
were taken to City Point, but one was 
overlooked and so it happens that on 
the Confederate Memorial day eigh- 
teen Confederates and one Union sol- 
dier bivouac upon that historic battle- 
field and are all alike covered with 
flowers by the tender hands of the 
Southern women. 

Only one American soldier fell in 
Dewey's victory at Manila Bay, but 
his deatli marked another of the 
turning points in history. 

Comrades, on this historic field 
you did your duty well a half century 
ago. Undiscouraged by defeat the 
lesson was learned that a battle is 
not fought in one day; that a defeat 
may be turned into victory. We 
have learned now, too, that such a 
victory may in the end — under Benign 
Providence — become a victory for all 
who fought on that field. It is the 
flag of tbe united country that daily 
floats over tliis national battlefield 
park from sunrise to sunset, and with 
one accord we hope that it may float 
there forever. 

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APR 20 1912 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 702 248 5 




Major John F. Lacey 



